Drought, pending storm may force early apple harvest

The Honeycrisps are ripe at Lynd's Fruit Farm in Pataskala, and the folks who run the place hope customers come and get them before Hurricane Isaac does.

Mary Vanac, The Columbus Dispatch

The Honeycrisps are ripe at Lynd’s Fruit Farm in Pataskala, and the folks who run the place hope customers come and get them before Hurricane Isaac does.

The Lynds are inviting customers to start picking the popular apples on Friday morning, before the remnants of the hurricane arrives in central Ohio over the weekend. Wind and rain from the storm could knock the apples off the tree, making them less valuable.

“I would expect a couple thousand people to show up Friday to pick these apples,” Andy Lynd said. “And they will pick just about everything.”

The sweet, tart, crisp apples released 20 years ago by the University of Minnesota are a customer favorite, Lynd said. Honeycrisps are a “wildly popular variety,” Lynd said. “We cannot plant trees fast enough to keep up with demand.”

They’re also a lucrative crop, which the family orchard can’t afford to lose, especially this year.

“The price for Honeycrisp is substantially more than for all the other varieties,” Lynd said. This year, the family is selling Honeycrisps you pick yourself for $30 a half-bushel and $20 a peck.

It’s been a challenging season for Ohio apple growers. The trees bloomed weeks early, and some blossoms were killed by frost.

Typically, the Lynds hold off on picking the Honeycrisps until after Labor Day. “People don’t really start to think about apples until after school starts,” said the seventh-generation Lynd apple grower.

But not this year. The drought weakened the normal bonds between tree and apple, making the apples prone to falling off the tree before they’re picked.

“As a general rule, people aren’t going to pick their apples early because of a storm,” said Bill Dodd, president of the Fruit Growers Marketing Association.

“In the situation of a Honeycrisp, it’s so valuable, and it’s so close to harvest, you can go ahead and do that,” Dodd said.

Branstool Orchard in Utica plans to pick its Honeycrisps today, not because of potential bad weather but because the apples are ripe, said spokeswoman Linda Jackson.

Legend Hills Orchard, also in Utica, likewise is picking its Honeycrisps before high winds arrive.

“We’ll probably pick ours on Friday, let them stay on the trees one more day to get more color,” said Virgil Hatch, son-in-law of owner Richard Hoar. Legend Hills is selling Honeycrisp apples for $10.75 a peck at its country store at 11155 Reynolds Road.

Meanwhile, the Lynds are emailing 15,000-plus customers and updating their website to put a “for sale” sign on the Honeycrisps. Picking starts at 9 a.m. Friday at 9091 Morse Rd. S.W.